Is it worth recording videos at Conferences and Meetups?

We’re at the most busy point of organising WebCamp Ljubljana 2016. One of the questions we had to ask ourselves is – should we record the talks? It seemed that in previous years, did it because Kiberpipa and everyone else too. As organizers, we want to question decisions made in previous years. This is why we decided to investigate our decision to record the conference.

The effort required

We have 3 concurrent tracks. That means we need 3 semi-professional cameras with tripods, external mics and all the electricity. To get all of this together, somebody has to prepare and source the equipment. The on the conference day, 3 people are recording and you usually need 1 person extra as a support. Then after everything is over, it has to be edited and published. A few more days of work.

How did we do in previous years?

I looked through the stats for the videos. I didn’t know what to expect, but our most viewed video had 650+ views and the second one over 500. Then it’s slowly dropping off but a number of videos with 50+ or 100+ is still not too bad.

The real impact

One of the questions was – isn’t all this already taught through blogs, books and other conference recordings? And I believe that this just isn’t true. We’re still recording only a small amount of tech content. In addition to that, some speakers resonate well with us, while others we just can’t stand. Numbers show that people are watching and sharing the videos and that we help speakers have longer lasting impact.

So that made it really easy to decide to invest the effort on recording this years WebCamp again.

One thought on “Is it worth recording videos at Conferences and Meetups?”

I agree. I have a friend who prefers to learn through video. She is obviously not the only one based on popularity of platforms like Udemy and others. I think most speakers prefer recordings as well as it makes it easier for them to promote their work and show other organizers their skills.

I don’t hold it against conferences if they don’t record talks, but I am annoyed when they make an effort to prevent downloading. I’d much rather see a conference logo in corner of a video throughout than being forced to watch it in browser.

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